The tonotopic maps run in a caudorostral direction and show mirror reversals in their preferred frequency gradient at the points of their lowest and highest frequencies. With three chronically implanted μECoG arrays (total 96 channels; Figures 1B and 1C), we were able to characterize these multiple maps simultaneously by measuring responses

to each stimulus presentation. We were also able to measure spontaneous activity from the same cortical positions in a separate testing session. Furthermore, the simultaneous recording with chronic μECoG arrays permitted the analysis of spatiotemporal covariation in the spontaneous field potentials. In the following sections we first MK-8776 cost describe the methods that identified the tonotopic maps in the auditory cortex and then demonstrate that spontaneous activity

is organized in a manner that reflects the specific structure of these maps. We recorded auditory evoked potentials from the implanted μECoG arrays while the monkeys listened passively to 180 different pure tone stimuli (each 100 ms duration, at 30 different frequencies from 100 Hz to 20 kHz at each of 6 intensity levels from 52–87 dB; see Experimental Procedures). The tone stimuli evoked robust responses (Figure 2). Unlike the average evoked waveform, which was dominated by the lower frequency components phase-locked to stimulus onset BIBW2992 price (Figure 2A, lower panels), the normalized spectrogram clearly shows increases

from the prestimulus period in higher frequency power, especially in the high gamma range (60–250 Hz; Figure 2A, upper panels) possibly due to the fact that the spectrogram reflects not only phase-locked Idoxuridine but also non-phase-locked components of the evoked response. To evaluate the auditory frequency preferences of individual sites, we estimated the characteristic frequency (CF) for each site based on the evoked high gamma power from the first 150 ms after the presentation of the stimulus (see Experimental Procedures). This produced tuning profiles with clear frequency preferences, which sometimes became better defined at lower sound intensities (Figure 2B, left; see also Figure S3, available online) but could also be relatively independent of sound intensity (Figure 2B, right). The statistical significance of this frequency preference was evaluated using a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA, p < 0.01; see Experimental Procedures). About two-thirds of the sites in STP showed significant frequency tuning (65/96 sites in monkey M, 62/96 sites in monkey B) and were organized in a tonotopic fashion, with CF reversals (Figure 3). The maps were similar in the two monkeys. Starting at the most caudal electrodes in the caudal-most array, sites were tuned to comparatively high frequencies. Moving rostrally along the STP, the frequency tuning went through at least three well-defined reversals over a distance of roughly 2 cm.